Lightsaber Colours and How they Were Used In the Films

I'm not fond of the fact that the Jedi get three colours (blue, green, purple) and the Sith get only one (red). Not only is it unfair, but it also limits red to being a "bad guy" colour, and the only "bad guy" colour. It doesn't help that red is my favourite colour, and I hate the cliched "evil" stigma that's been attached to the red lightsaber.

I think that the Jedi & Sith should have had an equal amount of lightsaber colour choices. Here are three different ways that could have been done:

1. The Jedi & Sith both have access to a variety of different lightsaber colours.

2. The Jedi have blue & green, so the Sith get red and a second colour (orange?)

OR

3. The Jedi & Sith get one colour each: blue & red (I know Luke had a green saber in ROTJ, but he was the first in a new generation of Jedi, so he could have gotten away with it).

 

Nah, I like the face there was only four colors. Kinda of like the simplicity of the whole thing.

 

I don't think its a big deal and Lucas didn't put much thought into this.
The only reason there is purple is because Samuel L. Jackson asked for it and George allowed it. Jackson simply thought purple would look cool and he wanted to be different.

 

I do wish that they hadn't limited any one to the color of their blade. A wide array of colors would have been interesting, as I thought they were supposed to have sort of reflected the preferences and personality of the wielder. Somehow I doubt every single Jedi in the Order (save Mace Windu, of course) would have freely chosen JUST blue or green.

 

Just to be pedantic - technically, the Sith Lord Darth Vader does use a lightsaber with a blue blade prior to the fight with Obi-Wan which cripples him, & had he not lost the fight, or had he escaped with the lightsaber, there's no reason to believe he wouldn't have continued to use it. Would he have changed the colour? Possibly.

I do like the idea that the Jedi use blue or green blades, while the Sith use red - it's a simple, effective colour motif that's easily recognisable. Red = stop, danger, fire, blood. Blue = water, sky, cool, calm. Green = go, nature, trees.

Chucking another colour, i.e. Mace Windu's purple blade, was the mistake. A very obvious attempt to do something different for no other reason, & a colour with no immediate connotation (although apparently purple is the colour of sexual frustration, so make of that what you will).

 

It's possible he would have stuck with the blue saber, as there is no logically reason he would switch (I know in the EU red lightsabers have slightly stronger blades than other types, but still the advantage is next to insignificant, and doesn't really have any bearing on the films themselves). It's also possible Dooku himself had a red lightsaber long before he became a Sith, and it's just coincidence he happened to use it before he turned evil. Who knows?

Of course there are other emotions/states those colours could stand for. Red = love. Blue = ice, fridigity. Green = decay, toxic nuclear waste.

There are multiple connotations for all colours, positive and negative. Red doesn't have to be bad, and blue & green don't have to be good.

 

Avenues of inquiry.

[1] E = hf. It requires more energy, and more cost, to generate a coherent beam of higher frequency than a beam of lower frequency. Out of his own honest-as-a-cherry-tree mouth Lucas has said "laser sword". So it's all a matter of bling, and Mace has the most. In terms of EU lightsabre crystals, Mace's is the rarest because it has the highest coherent energy. None of this pet theory contradicts evidence on screen - the power capabilities of any lightsabre, red, blue, or green, are far greater than that of human flesh. Under that observation, one can classify the Sith red selection as "expedience", i.e., what is the minimum energy requirement to kick someone's ass. Versus the Jedi selection of higher wavelengths, more costly and therefore elegant. Yes - I realize Palpatine has a gold handle, but it doesn't scuttle this theory. Although the blaster shots are of plasma, the principle still stands - more energy is required for a green bit of plasma than a red, but their effects are both generally deadly to flesh.

"Green light has a higher frequency than red light, so green photons are more energetic than red photons (E = hf)."
http://www.batesville.k12.in.us/physics/PhyNet/Quantum/atom_quantum/answers/ch38_assignment.htm

"red, green and blue photons are much less energetic than ultraviolet photons,"
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/1220

[2] Aside from physics concerns, which we all know the GFFA adheres to with the utmost devout strictness <Gregorian chant>, there are the visceral visual requirements of the stage. The original trilogy's palette of red sabre + black Darth Vader was shorthand for / analogous to / snapshot of a blood-spilling black knight, Satan, balrog, Gehennah, Pandaemonium, Reichstagbrand, perhaps Walpurgisnacht, Beltane and Valhalla. Not to mention echoes of a volcanic planet duel, pre-"Mustafar", which he may very well have had in formalizing the Darth Vader appearance for SW77.

The blue and green + earth/neutral/sand robes of the original trilogy reflect water, leaf, organic, symbiotic. This was long before luminescent green became the union 'color of evil' (LOTR) or union 'color of the future' (Matrix), a phenomenon I have not yet puzzled out. For instance, in classic sixties sci-fi, the color of the future was white.

I bet someone could make a case for the distribution of green and blue sabres representing some historical proper balance to the Jedi of living and unifying force (about which I know nothing).

 

GL only ever planned to have two colors, red and blue. Red for the Sith and blue for the Jedi. The reason Luke has a green saber in ROTJ is because the blue blade didn't show up against the blue sky during the Tatooine scenes. Mace has purple because Sam L Jackson likes purple and begged/convinced GL to let him have that color.

 

I realize why Luke has a green saber in ROTJ, but there isn't any reason why there has to any green ones in the prequels. Like I said above, Luke was the first of a new generation of Jedi, and his green saber could have just been a reflection of this.

And as for Sam Jackson ... Lucas should have hired a less assertive actor.

 

I personally believe the clash of purple vs. red was very effective in the Mace/Palpatine duel from ROTS.

I also think one of the reasons why Anakin keeps the blue lightsaber blade in ROTS after turning to the Dark Side is that blue makes for a better contrast with the environment of Mustafar, while red wouldn't have been quite as distinct!

 

If you alter the tint on your TV you can switch the colours on them.

 

Option 2. Green and blue vs. red and yellow. I think it would be cool if Sidious had a yellow lightsaber, especially in his battle with Mace if we kept the purple. If Sidious is the first Sith we see with a yellow lightsaber it would add a dimension to him as more than an average Sith Lord, just like Mace with his purple.
Plus it would match his eyes

 

I think red should be for sith and thats it.

 

Buy why? Oh, Lord, why?!!?

On a serious note now ... why, if the Jedi aren't limited to just blue? The whole "they're evil" excuse just doesn't cut with me. I'd like a stronger reason why the Sith should use only red, and why only the Sith should use red.

 

If a Sith had any other lightsaber colour other than red, I think it should be silver.

[image=http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/swfanon/images/d/db/Sith_visions.jpg]

 

Purple looks good in sith hands too, but red and purple are the only onw which i could accept.

 

What about plaid?

 

Scottish Sith?

 

I like that the Sith only have red...I can't really imagine them having another color, red being the most "dominant" of colors-makes sense...Plus that singularity in color helps distinguish them from the Jedi...

I'm okay with the Green and Blue...I read somewhere that Lucas at first wanted most of the Jedi to all have blue...I'm glad he changed his mind on that...I like the idea that Mace had Purple-kind of like a "vintage" lightsaber, the last of its kind...perhaps hearkening back to a time when Jedi had all kinds of colors: Blue, green, orange, purple and yellow!

I know this won't happen, but if there ever were to be another star wars movie/trilogy made, I would want it to be in the old days of the Republic-like the Sith war and all that...and all the Jedi would have a wide range of colors...

 

Next time you watch a SW movie, change the tint of your TV when a lightsaber duel pops up. Then you can see what a Sith with a non-red lightsaber looks like.

 

The Jedi would have only had blue sabers if they would have shown up against the blue skies of Tattoine.

The idea is calm and cool vs angry and aggressive.

 

Red isn't the only "angry & aggressive" colour out there; orange and possibly yellow could also represent those feelings. There's just no good reason for why the Sith were limited to a single colour.

 

Red is the most aggressive color. Yellow is happy, Orange is warm.

 

Homer Simpson is yellow. He seems pretty aggressive to me.

 

Heres a list of some GOOD connotations for the colour red, and some BAD connotations for the colours blue & green.


RED

Love

Life

Warmth

Passion

Beauty

Courage

Sacrifice


BLUE

Cold

Depression

Sadness


GREEN

Jealousy

Envy

Immaturity

Death

Decay

Evil


Red doesn't have to have negative connotations, and blue & green don't have to have positive ones. It's all subjective.